Thursday, 15 December 2016

Here are some of the latest writing news and writing information from around the world.

Brooklyn Beckham to publish photography book What I See
Brooklyn Beckham is to release his first book - publishers Penguin Random House have announced.
What I See, which will be released in May 2017, will consist of 300 photographs taken by the 17-year-old alongside new images of him.http://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-38149735

YouTube's Highest-Paid Star Just Trolled Everyone. Here's What You Can Learn.
Felix Arvid Ulf Kjellberg, known as PewDiePie to now more than 50 million YouTube subscribers, posted a video earlier this week announcing he would exit the platform that made him famous if he reached the 50 million threshold.https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/286344

Selling My Books With CreateSpace
I’ve been writing and selling books for years and until recently I’ve had my own books printed and sold and shipped them myself.
But last month (November) I began to use Amazon’s POD publishing site, CreateSpace.http://ruthiswriting.com/articles/2016/createspace.html

5 Ways to Trick Yourself Into Being Productive When You're Just Not Feeling It
Writing notes, taking a walk and allowing yourself simple rewards are little hacks that can increase your motivation.https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/286003

Bana Alabed, seven-year-old tweeting from Aleppo, goes quiet
A seven-year-old girl whose tweets from besieged eastern Aleppo drew worldwide attention has disappeared from the social network amid an army offensive.http://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-38205889

The Crazy Egg Guide to Conversion Copywriting
PPC campaigns, email marketing, social media management, SEO optimization or good old fashioned word of mouth.
All viable and potentially profitable methods to grow your brand. But they’re also all very different.https://blog.crazyegg.com/guides/conversion-copywriting/

U.S. Supreme Court backs Samsung in smartphone fight with Apple
The U.S. Supreme Court sided with Samsung in its big-money smartphone patent fight with Apple, throwing out an appeals court ruling that the South Korean company had to pay a $399 million penalty to its American rival for copying key iPhone designs.http://mobile.reuters.com/article/idUSKBN13V1XL

Warner Bros. to Host 2 Breakfast Receptions at Hogwarts
Harry Potter fans of all ages are invited to watch dawn break over the Hogwarts castle model while enjoying an exclusive breakfast reception. The iconic castle took a team of 40 people seven months to build from scratch with over 300 fibre optic lights installed to simulate lanterns and torches.https://www.wbstudiotour.co.uk/breakfastathogwarts

'Eat, Pray, Love' Author Elizabeth Gilbert Splits From Husband José Nunes
Gilbert announced the news in a Facebook post on Friday, writing, "I am separating from the man whom many of you know as "Felipe" — the man whom I fell in love with at the end of the Eat, Pray, Love journey. He has been my dear companion for over 12 years, and they have been wonderful years. Our split is very amicable. Our reasons are very personal.http://www.huffingtonpost.com.au/entry/elizabeth-gilbert-separates-josé-nunes_us_5776d10ae4b0a629c1aa05e6

Nook pulls out of UK
Nook is pulling out of the UK and transferring its UK customers to Sainsbury's.
The e-reader and tablet company owned by American bookselling chain Barnes & Noble told customers it would stop trading in the UK, effective as of 15th March 2016, via a notice posted on its websitehttp://www.thebookseller.com/news/nook-pulls-out-uk-323820

In the Age of Typewriter Apps, This Historic NYC Typewriter Repair Shop is Running Strong
Like most other New York City businesses that have been handed down through generations, The Gramercy Typewriter Company has been keeping tradition alive year after year despite the continual threats of technology.http://www.solidsmack.com/culture/67986historic-typewriter-repair-shop/

FreeWrite Distraction-Free Typewriter Is Now Available For Purchase
The good news is that if you have been waiting since 2014 to get your hands on the device, you won’t have to wait much longer because the company has officially put the typewriter up for sale. It will be sold under a different name as the FreeWrite, but essentially it is more or less what we have seen when it first launched.http://www.ubergizmo.com/2016/02/freewrite-typewriter-available-for-purchase/

BBC UK seeking unsolicited comedy scripts for TV, film, radio, stage or online. Deadline 4th April 2016.
BBC Writersroom's regular window for unsolicited scripts is open between 10am on 14th March and 5pm on 4th April 2016 for Comedy scripts (TV, film, radio, stage or online).http://www.bbc.co.uk/writersroom/opportunities/script-room

Wednesday, 13 January 2016

Here are some of the latest writing news and writing articles from around the globe.

I hope you find it useful.

More Than 500K Readers Take Goodreads Reading Challenge
More than 500,000 readers have signed up for the 2016 Goodreads reading challenge.
The challenge allows readers to set personal reading goals for the year. So far, 28,723,103 books have been pledged and 243,287 have already been completed. The average books pledged is 49 books. Fifty-nine challenges have already been completed.http://www.adweek.com/galleycat/more-than-500k-readers-take-goodreads-reading-challenge/114544

10 Reasons You Should Write a Children's Book in 2016
A decade ago, I was dating a physician. He was a nice guy, but I knew the relationship was doomed the night he asked: "So, when are you going to write a grown-up book?"
I laughed, unsure how to answer. But as I was driving home, I realised what I should have said: "Do people ask paediatricians that? When are you going to start seeing grown-up patients?"http://www.huffingtonpost.com/kate-klise/10-reasons-you-should-wri_b_8910290.html

Best Recurring Affiliate Programs: Make Free Money For Life [2016]
One of the highly profitable parts of affiliate marketing is recurring income. I’m sure you are aware of how affiliate marketing works. You get payment when somebody buys a product using your affiliate link & the commission is really high.http://www.shoutmeloud.com/best-recurring-affiliate-program.html

Thursday, 9 April 2015

For the past few days (well, a week really) I've been busy working away making all my websites "mobile responsive."

This means that they have to be flexible, and morph into shape to fit any screen size from mobile phone to desktop computer.

I have several websites so it's taking me quite some time to do it. So far I've already completed half of my sites (phew! She wipes the virtual sweat from her brow) but it's taking a lot of work and a lot of working out.

The reason I'm doing it is because Google says I have to.

On 21st April 2015 they are bringing in new rules about search results and say that they won't include non-mobile-responsive websites in their mobile results.

The reason I want keep my rankings in the Google search results, is that for several keywords I'm on page one of search results and for one, at least, I'm number one. (Yay! Go me!)

So this past week of working flat out, and with the pressure from Google, who keep emailing me about my website problems, I feel like I'm working for them. And they are bad payers because I'm not earning more money for all my extra effort and I'm not getting my own work done either.

On the other hand, making my websites mobile responsive is something that I've been thinking about for a while now. Thinking, but not doing anything about it.

But now the pressure is on. I have to get things finished in less than 2 weeks - or else.

And it's not just mobile responsiveness that Google is looking at. They are also concerned about sites with too many broken links amongst other things.

And if you have websites, or just one website, and you want people with mobile phones to be able to find your site using the search engines, then you'd better make sure it's fluid and that all your pages are completely up-to-date with no issues.

If you have a WordPress site, you need to make sure that you're using a theme that is mobile responsive.

If you're like me and you use HTML static web design, then you need to redesign your site to make it change layout for different media (screen size).

I use Adobe DreamWeaver for all my website designing, except for this blog because it's owned by Google and so they keep the design up to date for me so that they don't break their own rules.

DreamWeaver has built-in "fluid grid" web page software which basically means that when I build a webpage for mobile viewing, the design automatically filters though to the other 2 screen sizes - desktop and tablet. So all I have to do is a bit of tweaking here and there to get my web pages exactly how I want them on all 3 screen sizes, and it can all be done without coding.

But in the meantime, I'm missing being a writer because although web page designing is something I can do (although this type of designing has been quite a bit of a learning curve), it's not my favourite job. That's why I count myself fortunate to be able to use Adobe DreamWeaver software to make the task quicker and easier.

And speaking of which, it's time for me to get back to work and make my web page designs really sing.

Thursday, 2 April 2015

Google is currently pushing all website owners to make their websites responsive (or fluid) so that they can be viewed on all Smart Phones.

What Google considers a Smart Phone is any phone running on Android, iPhone, or Windows Phone operating systems with web browsers that work similar to desktop computer browsers and are able to display webpages that conform to HTML5 specifications. In other words, most modern phones.

They will also penalise websites that have what Google considers to be "common mistakes" which includes slow-loading mobile pages and making Flash video the majority of a page’s content.

But they do provide a page where you can test your website to see if it comes up to their new standards at.

The biggest push of all is that the deadline for getting websites up-to-date and Smart Phone responsive, is 21st April 2015.

So that's less than 3 weeks from now.

And what is it that they plan to do to hurt websites owners without responsive websites?

They won't include your website in their mobile search results.

My problem with all this, is that only one of my websites is responsive. And that's this one.

So now my challenge is to redesign all my websites (and I have several) by 21st April.

Google keeps emailing me and listing all the problems with my current websites (thanks Google).

And I don't want to lose my spots in the search results because for many keywords and key phrases, I'm on the first page of Google results, and for one I'm actually at the number one spot.

Which means, that to stay afloat in the crazy ever-changing online world, I have to knuckle down and work hard to bring my websites kicking and screaming into responsive design.

Sadly, the only way to do this is to let all my other work slide for the time being while I crack on with this.

Hopefully, I'll have it done in one week (ha, ha, ha...I'm so damn funny sometimes) so if you don't get any emails from me or blog updates in the near future, that's why.

Damn you Google!!!!

But I guess it was only a matter of time until this all caught up with me because I really should have taken care of this problem months/years ago. I've been thinking about it for a while now. But that's all I've been doing. Thinking.

Sherlock Heirs Lose US Supreme Court Test
Justice Elena Kagan dismissed a plea by the Scottish author's heirs, who aimed to delay another writer's ability to use Holmes and his loyal assistant Dr Watson in a new book.

22 Lessons From Stephen King On How To Be A Great Writer
In his memoir, “On Writing,” King shares valuable insights into how to be a better writer. And he doesn’t sugarcoat it. He writes, “I can’t lie and say there are no bad writers. Sorry, but there are lots of bad writers.”

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